The present invention relates generally to queue management in networking devices such as bridges, routers, and certain types of network function appliances, but not by way of limitation, to a system, a method, and a recording medium for queue management using information contained in packets traversing a reverse path from a forwarder to intelligently select which packets in queue to drop.
Many conventional techniques exist to manage queues in networks and are categorized as Active Queue Management (AQM). The AQM techniques attempt to drop packets intelligently so as to improve throughput and reduce delay.
That is, conventional techniques include, for example, drop tail, Random Early Drop (RED), the proportional integral (PI) controller, Stochastic Fairness Queuing (SFQ), and Controlled Delay (CoDel). The common theme in these techniques is that the techniques only consider information related to simplex (single-directional) flows, such as queue length, arrival time, or packet markings.
Thus, the present inventors have recognized that the above conventional techniques, and other conventional techniques, are limited in their applications in that the techniques only utilize single-directional flow parameters to manage queues and do not consider information available in the corresponding reverse flow as a way to determine which packets to drop. Thus, when forced to drop a packet, the conventional techniques frequently drop a useful packet instead of a redundant one.